Her mother woke and had to blame somebody
and barked at the nurses why couldn’t they
so much it hurt and then sent her again some test
for later this morning the doctor would just be
interminable Sarah thought bracing herself
to hear it all again. Surely in India there would be,
in a forest of strange trees, a clearing, where he and I
would gather delicate renunciations and become wise
together. When her mother threw books and threatened
to break each vase, out in the hall that thought
shook its slender antlers of ivory, beckoned, and shyly,
dappled in diamond and topaz, disappeared
into a thicket of gurney and wheelchair